


Copperhead Road

by JLSigman



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLSigman/pseuds/JLSigman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theme 26: Small town</p>
            </blockquote>





	Copperhead Road

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted March 24, 2009](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/roads_diverged/31604.html)  
>  Lyrics for “Copperhead Road” by Steve Earl are copyright 1988, no infringement is implied or intended.

_Well my name's John Lee Pettimore_  
_Same as my daddy and his daddy before_  
 _You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here_  
 _He only came to town about twice a year_  
 _He'd buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line_  
 _Everybody knew that he made moonshine_  
 _Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad_  
 _He headed up the holler with everything he had_  
 _It's before my time but I've been told_  
 _He never came back from Copperhead Road_

The Sparda men had always been crazy, from the time the first one settled up on the mountain with his woman after the Civil War. They liked their guns and hated the government, and weren't afraid to brag about both facts. No-one in the town was surprised when the revenue man came during Prohibition days to try to shut the Sparda stills down, and they weren't surprised when the revenue man never returned. When an investigator came by later to look for the missing man, the townspeople shrugged and said they hadn't seen him. The Sparda's might have been crazy, but they were loyal, and God help you if you crossed one.

Despite rumors of dark rituals and making pacts with devils in order to keep their lands safe, the one son born each generation always managed to find a wife, usually some wild younger daughter of some rich folk from the big town a few hours away. So it was no surprise when the young Sparda man went off to World War II and came back with a bride as wild-eyed as he was named Eve. The rumor was she was as good a shot as he was, too, and had killed men in order to stay with him.

No, the only surprise was when she gave birth to two sons instead of the usual one. The boys ran wild together on the mountain until their father's death.

 _Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge_  
_Bought it at an auction at the Mason's Lodge_  
 _Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side_  
 _Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside_  
 _Well him and my uncle tore that engine down_  
 _I still remember that rumblin' sound_  
 _Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night_  
 _Heard mama cryin', knew something wasn't right_  
 _He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load_  
 _You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road_

The older boy, called V by just about everyone since he was actually the fifth John Lee Sparda, turned quiet and withdrawn after that. He read all the books his mother had brought with her, then asked where he could get more. Eve looked at the boy for a long time, then arranged with some of her relatives who had moved to the States after the war to keep him while he went to school. Dante, named for his mother's brother, looked at his twin like he had gone insane, and they fought every day until it was time for V to leave.

The morning he was to leave, Eve woke both boys up with the dawn. She was unusually silent as she made breakfast, then called them into the front room when they were done. She handed each one half a jeweled locket, saying the original had been in their father's family for generations, and to keep it safe. Then the car with her cousin arrived, and V turned to go.

“Why you gotta leave?” Dante asked his twin again.

“'Cause there's more to the world than this mountain,” V answered again. He left, and it would be many years before anyone in the town saw him again.

 _I volunteered for the Army on my birthday_  
_They draft the white trash first,'round here anyway_  
 _I done two tours of duty in Vietnam_  
 _And I came home with a brand new plan_  
 _I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico_  
 _I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road_  
 _Well the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air_  
 _I wake up screaming like I'm back over there_  
 _I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don't you know_  
 _You better stay away from Copperhead Road_

Dante hated the war but loved to fight, and got several medals to prove that the Sparda loyalty and insanity had not passed him by. He came back home a man, and went out to prove it as often as he could. Sometimes it was weeks before he returned, but like the cat, he always came back to be fed.

He had just gotten the new business up and running when a new sheriff was appointed to the county. Mundus was a city man with a reputation for being a hard-ass on criminals. When told about it, Dante just grinned his lazy smile and said his family had never had trouble with the law before, and he didn't expect to have any now.

That all changed when the sheriff's daughter came to visit. The two laid eyes on each other by accident during one of Dante's trips to the store for beer, and from that day on he had nothing but trouble with her father. Trish never left to go back to wherever her home was, but went up the mountain and stayed there. Mundus ranted and raved and threatened and called in all the favors he could, but the only response from the two was when a copy of their wedding certificate showed up at his office with a crudely scrawled note that read, “Fuck you, she's mine now.” The sheriff redoubled his efforts.

The night the helicopter passed overhead was the worst. Dante woke up screaming, then jumped out of bed to find his guns. Trish tried to follow, but she was heavily pregnant and couldn't move like she used to. She finally found him crouched on the front porch, rifle in his hand and shot gun at his feet. The helicopter passed on and never came back but it was dawn before he stopped scanning the sky and muttering. Then he seemed to come back to himself with a shudder, and came inside to lay his head on her belly while he cried.

They named their son Nero, and that seemed to soften the sheriff somehow. Things settled back to normal until the day the circuit court prosecutor came looking for help serving a warrant. The sheriff drove the neat young man up the mountain and stood at the car when he knocked on the door of a house he hadn't seen in almost twenty years.

The reunion of the twins was short and brutal: a fist lashing out in anger got Dante handcuffed and hauled away while his wife and young son watched. “I'll be back soon,” he drawled. “Take care of your Momma, OK?”

Nero nodded. He never forgave himself for losing her when the state came to take him away and put him in a foster home not long after that. And he never forgave Dante for never coming back.


End file.
